Those who don't follow Bison track may not have followed the remarkable season of freshman Maura Fiamoncini. In her first meet of her college career, she threw over 184 feet, not only breaking the Bucknell record by 25 feet but putting her into 2nd place on the national list. With the season drawing to a close, she still ranks 3rd among all college throwers and 4th among all Americans for the year. She will be competing in NCAA Nationals today in Eugene (Oregon).

Maura is among the smallest javelin throwers (5-3) but is a great athlete who was a very good HS basketball player at Mount Carmel until a serious knee injury ended her career in that sport. But by that time she had become one of the top HS javelin throwers in the East. Based on what she has done to date, she is one of the top Bison T&F athletes in decades.

Yes I recall reading about her as a basketball player as well as track athlete. Good for her and best of luck!

As a junior - playing with a bad knee - she averaged 18 ppg and led Mount Carmel to a 26-3 season. Made some level of all-state. That year, she was the female area athlete of the year and the male winner was Matt Fedorjaka.

I've been meaning to post something about Maura, but never got around to doing it. Although she has the 3rd longest throw, that came under unusual circumstances. She is seeded 8th based on her performance in the East preliminary round and is ranked 7th by Track & Field News. A top 8 finish would earn 1st team All-American, which is a realistic goal. That would be the highest finish ever by a woman T&F athlete and the best male or female performance since George Buckheit finished 6th in the 10,000 in 1979. I don't know if Bucknell has had any recent 1st team All-Americans in another sport, but I'm not aware of any.

It's also worth mentioning, while they didn't qualify for Eugene, Colleen Buckley and Chrissy Bendzinski both had outstanding performances in the preliminary meet. Buckley missed qualifying by 1 place (and just over a second) in the 10,000. Not to mention she ran a school record by 21 seconds in warm, humid conditions. Bendzinski missed by 2 places in the 5,000 after competing in two rounds of the 1500.

Maura will compete this Friday at 2:30 in the US Junior Nationals. She has the longest qualifying throw by 9 feet, but will need to throw better than at NCAA's. There are only 9 confirmed entries, so there should be less pressure. The top 2 finishers qualify for world juniors in Finland in July.

I was reminded that Ted Heitzman was a 1st team All-American in the javelin in 2011 when he finish 6th at the NCAA meet.

Maura will throw at either 2:00am eastern time tonight (actually tomorrow) or 3:20am eastern time depending on which group she is in. The finals are on Wednesday, July 11 at 11:50am Eastern time. There is a 7 hour time difference from Finland to the east coast.